Former Tesla Inc. TSLA executive Rohan Patel said on Wednesday that California Governor Gavin Newsom and his team have “bent over backwards” to help the EV giant despite CEO Elon Musk‘s criticisms.
What Happened: “Newsom and his team bent over backwards to help Tesla. We didn't always agree with every action, but his top leadership always was willing to help whenever we asked,” Patel wrote, while also noting that the Governor owns a Tesla Roadster and a Model S. Patel was Tesla’s vice president of global public policy and business development until April earlier this year.
Patel further added that not all who find Musk’s political stances disturbing are against the company, its employees, or its products.
“Even after the harshest tweets against Newsom or Biden or another Dem, their teams and governments did not shut me or my team out and were professional in working with us for the greater good,” he wrote.
Patel was refuting Tesla enthusiast Omar Qazi, who goes by the username “Whole Mars Catalog.” Qazi alleged that democrats hate Tesla after Newsom applauded EV startup Rivian for their rise in new registrations in the state of California during the second quarter and noted that Tesla is no longer the exclusive EV manufacturer for EVs in the state.
Why It Matters: “I want to applaud and thank the extraordinary work that Rivian has done,” Newsom said on Tuesday. “Tesla is not the exclusive manufacturer any longer in this space. You're seeing a dramatic shift in competition across the sector. This is exactly what was predicted. This is exactly what we have been promoting: competition in the space.”
According to data from the California New Car Dealers Association released last month, California's BEV market share through the end of the second quarter stood 21.4%, much higher than the U.S. BEV market share of 7.5%.
As per the association, Tesla's new registrations fell 17% in the first half of 2024 while that of Rivian Automotive rose by nearly 77% in California. Tesla's mass-market Model Y SUV, however, continues to be the best-selling EV in the state, followed by the Model 3.
Last month, Patel also said that the Biden administration treated EV giant fairly in certain issues despite "surface-level disappointment" between the President and Musk.
"No doubt Biden is very biased towards unions and appoints pro-Union people to the nlrb making it easier to organize. But it didn’t often create substantive problems, and instead was more of a PR and surface-level disappointment," Patel wrote on X while adding that it is just his personal view.
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